Chicago's Cardinal Blase Cupich and two orders of Catholic nuns filed suit to block an Illinois law they say would force religious healthcare providers to help terminally ill patients end their own lives, with the statute set to take effect September 12.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, names the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, the Illinois Department of Public Health, and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation as defendants. The plaintiffs, Cardinal Cupich, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the Chicago Province of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and Fitzgerald Pharmacy owner Luke Vander Bleek, argue the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act threatens their religious freedom by imposing fines on providers who refuse to dispense lethal drugs.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the law in December 2025. It is scheduled to take effect September 12, giving the plaintiffs barely a week to secure a court order before enforcement begins.
The Carmelite Sisters and the Little Sisters of the Poor run homes for the elderly and the dying. Becket's press release says these Catholic healthcare ministries have served the sick, elderly, and dying of Chicago for nearly 175 years. Their mission centers on physical, emotional, and spiritual care in a homelike setting, care rooted in Catholic teaching that every life has dignity from its first moment to its natural end.
Now Illinois wants those same ministries to participate in a process their faith calls morally unacceptable. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is direct on the point: "Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible. Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable."
Mother Mary Rose Heery, the prioress general of the Carmelite Sisters, framed the stakes in personal terms. Becket's press release carried her statement:
"Our residents come to us at one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. Our vocation is to give witness to them, through everything we do, that their lives remain precious and that they will never be abandoned. Illinois cannot ask us to replace that promise with help ending their lives."
Mother Julie Marie, the mother provincial of the Chicago Province of the Little Sisters of the Poor, echoed that position:
"The elderly people who come to our homes are looking for a place where they will be cherished and cared for until natural death. They should be free to choose that kind of care without having assisted suicide inserted into it by the state. We simply want to continue giving them the loving home they came to us for."
These are women who devote their lives to caring for people in their final years. The state of Illinois has decided that devotion is not enough, that these nuns must also offer the option of a lethal prescription, or face penalties.
Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead attorney for the healthcare providers, did not limit his argument to religious freedom. He framed the law as harmful to patients themselves. As the Daily Caller News Foundation reported, Rienzi said:
"The state should stop trying to make Catholic nuns help patients kill themselves. It is awful for Illinois to be forcing every sick and dying person within its borders to hear its message of suicide at their lowest moment, regardless of whether they want it or not. Patients deserve the freedom to seek healing, hope, and accompaniment without the government forcing suicide into the conversation. The Constitution protects that freedom."
That argument cuts to a question the law's supporters would rather avoid: What about the terminally ill patient who does not want to hear about assisted suicide? Under the statute, providers face fines for refusing to participate. The law, as described in the complaint, does not simply permit assisted suicide, it conscripts unwilling participants into the process.
Luke Vander Bleek, the owner of Fitzgerald Pharmacy and a plaintiff in the suit, put the pharmacist's dilemma plainly:
"I became a pharmacist because I wanted to help people heal, never to hasten their deaths. But now Illinois wants my pharmacy to dispense prescriptions for suicide in violation of my Catholic beliefs. The state shouldn't force me to choose between serving my neighbors and following my conscience."
Illinois is not the only state pressing this fight. New York's own assisted-suicide law recently sparked a parallel lawsuit from Catholic leaders and nuns, and the Becket Fund flagged the pattern directly. In a September 3 post on X, Becket wrote: "First New York. Now Illinois. Another state is trying to force nuns and other Catholic healthcare ministries to betray their faith by facilitating assisted suicide, and this time, Illinois is threatening to punish them for speaking their life-affirming mission."
Cardinal Cupich, one of the most prominent Catholic leaders in the country, made his position a matter of faith and public record:
"The Gospel calls us to uphold the inviolable dignity and worth of the human person, from life's first moment to its natural end. As Catholics, we oppose efforts to undermine human dignity by pushing our brothers and sisters toward suicide. We pray that the courts will protect our freedom to continue advocating and caring for the sick and dying as our faith demands."
The Cardinal's involvement elevates the case beyond a dispute over pharmacy regulations. When the Archbishop of Chicago, the leader of one of the largest Catholic archdioceses in the United States, joins a lawsuit against his own state government, the conflict has moved into territory that legislators and governors ignore at their own political risk.
Across the country, legislation that touches deeply held public values continues to create fierce debate, and few issues cut closer to the bone than end-of-life decisions.
This is not the first legal challenge the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act has faced. In June, a physician, two disabled patients, and multiple healthcare advocacy groups filed a separate lawsuit against Illinois over the same statute. That suit argued the law lacks necessary guardrails to protect disabled patients from being discriminated against by physicians. The current status of that earlier case was not reported.
Two distinct lawsuits from two different angles, religious liberty and disability rights, suggest the law was pushed through without adequate consideration of the people most directly affected by it. The religious providers who care for the dying and the disabled patients who fear coercion are raising alarms that Illinois lawmakers either did not hear or chose to dismiss.
Neither Becket nor the named state agencies responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment before publication.
The pattern is familiar in blue-state governance: elected leaders push policies that provoke public backlash, and then decline to defend those policies when pressed. Gov. Pritzker signed this bill nine months ago. The law takes effect in a week. And the people it targets, nuns who care for the dying, a pharmacist who serves his neighbors, are the ones left to fight it in court.
Several open questions remain. The specific court where the lawsuit was filed has not been publicly identified. The full scope of the law's penalties beyond fines is unclear from available filings. And whether the statute applies to private religious facilities or only state-affiliated providers, a question with enormous practical consequences, has not been answered in public reporting.
What is clear is the timeline. September 12 is days away. If no court intervenes, Catholic healthcare providers in Illinois will face a choice the First Amendment was written to prevent: abandon your faith, or pay the state for keeping it.
When a government tells nuns they must help patients end their lives or face punishment, the problem is not with the nuns.